Elves
The people of Silbriesti — called Taniere — see Silbriesti document for the nation, its isolation, and the Thorns.
Body¶
Build and look: Taller than humans and slender, with pointed ears — Krynn's elves rather than anyone else's. Hair leans blond and red; brunettes are less common.
Lifespan: Around 400 years. An Elf of 400 is like a human of 100; the extreme, as rare as a human reaching 120, is near 480. The oldest Elves alive — barely adults when the Long War began, 311 years ago — are old now, but not yet at the end.
Sleep: Elves sleep, like anyone else.
Memory: Ordinary. An Elf remembers the world before the war the way an old human remembers their childhood — they have to work to recall it, and what they recall can be incomplete, reshaped by the years, or simply wrong. Pre-war memory is real and precious, but it isn't a record. Two old Elves can remember the same event differently and both be sincere.
Fae Heritage¶
Elves are part Fae. The Fae are, for the most part, immortal, and their realm was once close to this one. It is mostly cut off now. The only connections that remain lie in Elven lands, and there are fewer of them than there were.
What cut them off was the land, not the planes. The Fae belong to unblemished land, and the Long War left the world blighted and twisted — dead zones, poisoned ground, land torn up and built over. Every scar closed another way through. Where land is still largely unblemished, the Fae are still all right: in the Elven lands, and in the northern tundra of the Ice-Trolls, who are Fae-blooded too — Unseelie, to the Elves' Seelie.
The Elves are leaving. Rather than be stranded on this side when the last connections close, Elves are going back to the Fae lands. Every Elf who crosses over takes their memory of the old world with them.
The land-sense: The Elves' Fae side feels the land. The Fae belong to unblemished, untouched land — untainted by technology or disease — and an Elf feels when land is covered up, blighted, or twisted. Paved streets, mine spoil, a poisoned river, the war's dead zones: an Elf feels each of them as a wrongness in the ground. It's a sense, not magic; an Elf who never learns a spell still has it. It's the root of "Druids are Elves," and of the Thorns.
Primal magic: taught by the Fae, powered by the world. The Elves learned Primal magic from the Fae, but its power comes from the world itself — which is why the planar scars never touched it, and why it still works as the Fae withdraw. It has a side effect wherever the land is covered: Primal magic cast in a city pushes the land back. Vines climb walls, grass and moss turn up where they shouldn't, roots crack paving stones. It's harmless to the caster, and rarely welcome to anyone who owns the street.
Iron: The Fae have always hated iron, and Elves carry that in the body. Iron and steel wound them worse than other metals, and wearing it smothers the Fae side of them. It's why Elves favor spears and bows, make their weapons of bronze, and silver-plate any steel they do carry so it never touches them. Elves avoid steel armor. Lead bullets don't count — firearms are no worse for an Elf than for anyone.
Origin Focus — Elf¶
Taken like any other Origin Focus, with a normal Focus pick. Every power comes from Fae heritage.
Level 1: - Land-Sense. You feel the health of the land around you: whether it's untouched, covered, blighted, poisoned, or twisted by magic, and roughly how badly. You sense dead zones, echo sites, and corrupted ground before you walk into them. - Iron-Bane. Iron and steel weapons deal you +1 damage on every hit; bronze, silvered steel, and lead bullets don't. While you wear iron or steel armor, all your Origin Focus traits stop working. - Fae-Blooded. +2 to all saves against spells, Arts, and other magic. Set at +2 rather than +1 to offset Iron-Bane.
Level 2 — Untrodden Ways: On unspoiled land, you leave no trail, you can't become lost, and you can lead a group through wilderness as easily as down a road.
Open: whether Fae connections are known to non-Elves; whether the Thorns' repair work could ever reopen a way through; how many Elves have already crossed over, and what that means for Silbriesti; whether anyone can follow them.